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Jacobs dumps Crystal Lake Central in OT

Despite a terrible shooting night, a 14-point fourth quarter deficit and a Crystal Lake Central team red hot and in control, Jacobs senior Kameron Mack never doubted things for one second.

In fact, the whole Jacobs boys basketball team never once doubted it could come back and beat the Tigers, even if it took until the final seconds on Mack's buzzer-beating layup to just get even and force overtime during a 62-55 Fox Valley Conference win Tuesday.

But that's what it took for Jacobs to grab its 17th straight FVC win, which was filled with drama and times where it seemed it just wasn't the Golden Eagles night.

"Winning's hard," Jacobs coach Jimmy Roberts said. "Winning a lot is hard and winning a lot in this league is really hard. We know we're going to get the other teams' best shot."

Central (12-8, 6-4) certainly gave everything it could as Jacobs (17-3, 9-0) never led until the first basket of overtime. Deonta Dungey off the bench was key with 17 points coming mainly from five 3-pointers that seemed to be daggers at times.

But a 20-6 run over the final 6 minutes of the fourth quarter got Jacobs to overtime and Golden Eagles, who scored 14 points off turnovers in the quarter (22 overall), capitalized off 2 Central turnovers in the final 39 seconds.

Nik Balkcom (11 points) cashed in a layup with 27.7 left and a CLC travel with 10.2 left in the fourth thanks to the Eagles' swarming defense, set up the overtime-forcing hoop. As time ticked down, Mack flashed baseline, took a Balkcom pass in the right the corner with 5 seconds left, pump faked and mustered one off the glass over 6-foot-9 Alex Timmerman as time expired.

"One of the things our coaches say to us is you have as many dribbles as you have seconds," said Mack, who scored 9 of his game-high 21 points in the final 12 minutes. "I knew if I shot faked there was four seconds left and I have at least four dribbles left in me, maybe even I drive I have time to go and get a putback."

No putback was necessary as Mack's 4 dribbles gave Jacobs 4 extra minutes, where it dominated overtime 12-5 thanks in part to Mack, who hit a 3 with 2:40 left for a 55-53 lead the Eagles wouldn't relinquish.

"After a game like that, it's kind of unbelievable a little bit," Balkcom said. "That's just senior experience. We've been in plenty of battles like that."

Battle being an understatement. Jacobs, which also received 17 points and 9 rebounds from Ryan Phillips, shot 17 of 58 for a 29.3 percent clip. On the flip side, Central was lights out at 56.4 percent and led by 11 at the half and with 6:12 left in the fourth.

But where senior leadership was big for Jacobs, youthful inexperience reared its ugly head for the Tigers, who were forced into 12 turnovers in the fourth quarter and overtime combined. Central ended with 25 turnovers, which offset the nights of Timmerman (16 points, 7 rebounds) and CJ Lerum (13 points).

"I did a terrible job down the stretch of putting those guys in positions to be successful," Central coach Rich Czeslawski said. "That loss goes on me. Our kids played their heart out, they did everything we asked them to do. They executed the game plan and I choked down the stretch. I did a terrible job coaching."

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